The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart / Da Ponte. Co-Opera
directed by Tessa Bremner, Musical Director Brian Chatterton at The
Street Theatre, Canberra, March 29-30, 2011.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 29
“Co-Opera
was formed in 1990 with the express purpose of presenting opera in new
and imaginative ways….” Their aim is admirably achieved in this
production of Figaro, passing through Canberra on its east coast 30 performance tour from Adelaide to Port Douglas.
The
singing and acting was excellent throughout, though I make no bones
about being home-town biassed in praising the performance of Karen
Fitz-Gibbon. She has just last year completed her Honours year at the
Australian National University School of Music, and her Susanna was
close to perfect. Hers is the central role in Bremner’s approach to
Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto: Fitz-Gibbon’s timing and characterisation
made the whole play work dramatically.
Now, of course,
I’m forced to admit that Tessa Bremner is a one-time Canberra Critics’
Circle Award winner – for a production of Amadeus. All I can say
is that it is good to see that our award predicted continuing success,
especially since the value of critics is being questioned in the
blogosphere. (Follow this up in the current Currency House Platform
Papers No. 27, April 2011: HELLO WORLD! Promoting the Arts on the Web by Robert Reid, and Alison Croggon’s blog ‘The return of the amateur critic’ at http://www.abc.net,au/unleashed/20038.html)
My
reason for mentioning Bremner is that she was a successful stage play
director who clearly sees this opera production not as a series of
platforms for singers but as a drama of plot, thinking characters and
emotion. She has integrated all these elements into the wonderful
effects that Mozart’s music creates, and presented the work on a
smallish scale so that her audience can all feel personally part of the
theatrical illusion. The result is that all the social criticism
inherent in the original libretto is made apparent.
And,
it is important to say, Bremner is served very well by a small band, in
this case spread across the auditorium floor in front of Row A,
conducted in the traditional way by Chatterton at the continuo.
My
only thought about the originality of the show concerns the following
WikiLeak – sorry, Wikipedia entry: “It was Mozart who originally
selected Beaumarchais' play and brought it to Da Ponte, who turned it
into a libretto in six weeks, rewriting it in poetic Italian and
removing all of the original's political references. In particular, Da
Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with
an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. Contrary to the popular
myth, the libretto was approved by the Emperor, Joseph II, before any
music was written by Mozart.”
Watching the performance it is obvious that Joseph II didn’t realise that the satire was too subtle for all
the political references to be removed, fortunately for us for it is
indeed the way that the servants Figaro and Susanna treat their ‘noble’
bosses that makes the show relevant today (as of course it was
especially when Beaumarchais’ original play was banned in France in the
mid-1770s). What Co-Opera might have done is to reinstate Beaumarchais’
‘climactic speech against inherited nobility’, which could be done
especially because Da Ponte’s Italian has already been translated into
English for most of this production.
For me, Figaro’s
tirade against unfaithful wives seemed very much out of place against
the self-confidence and sensibility of the women, who take such a modern
approach to the practicalities of dealing with rampant males. Though
it is true that at this point Figaro has misunderstood what Susanna has
done, the good humour and loving nature of their relationship from the
beginning is far too easily blighted in his attack. It would make much
more sense for him to take the nobility to task as they deserve at this
point, and as Beaumarchais intended.
Otherwise
originality was to the fore. The use of Germanic English for all of the
skulduggery and Romance Italian for the love songs was a beautiful way
to make even more of the music than Mozart’s Austrian audience would
have heard. The costumes, with beehive head-dresses, exaggerated
commedia make-up and a dress sense appropriate for each class of
character made for the intelligent comedy that this opera is. At the
same time the use of clear plastic costume overlays, dressing room walls
and ‘mirrors’ was an exciting modern touch which worked very well to
make the meaning of the play transparent.
I wish this production well on its journey travelling north.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Sunday 13 March 2011
2011: A Chatroom of Critics with Mark Shenton
A Chatroom of Critics with Mark Shenton, at ACT Writers’ Centre, March 13, 2011
An Unreview by Frank McKone
Mark Shenton is a full-time theatre critic and journalist, writing a weekly review column for the Sunday Express and daily blog for The Stage. He has hosted regular platforms at the National Theatre, including an onstage interview with Stephen Sondheim. He has written liner notes for a number of original cast albums, including the West End recording of Chicago. Mark was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to London when he was 16 and has never looked back. He read law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and now lives in Borough, five minutes from the South Bank
guardian.co.uk (accessed 13 March 2011)
Mark is also Chair of the Drama Section of The Critics’ Circle, based in London but with members from all over the UK. He has a special passion for cabaret, in common with Canberra’s Bill Stephens who invited him to call in for an informal chat with the Canberra Critics’ Circle en his route between Melbourne and Sydney.
Though we reviewers give awards to the best artists, which means in London that the Drama Awards are presented in a major theatre and attract “everyone” in the theatre industry, there was consensus that the best critics, whoever they are, should not receive awards. This is why my report of a very entertaining couple of hours is not a review.
In fact it became clear that critics may not receive any rewards in the near future. Mark commented on the decline in newspaper sales as blogging and tweeting become the new outlets for critical commentary. Unless the Murdoch paywall approach is taken up by many other publishers, who will pay professional critics to blog?
Indeed, what is a professional critic? To be accepted as a member of The Critics’ Circle you must have a history of paid-for reviews over at least the previous two years. But when even a London newspaper reviewer writes, as Mark reported to us, about “blacking up” Iago in an argument against “political correctness”, I had to wonder who killed Othello? As newspapers struggle financially who will they pay to write reviews? Not the writers with experience and detailed knowledge of their specialist art forms, apparently.
Should reviews be mere entertainments? And therefore short? Of course not, but we discussed the difficult skill of writing briefly to the point, rather than boringly too long. Which means I will cut the several dozen other topics we discussed, even though this is an Unreview, and thank Mark Shenton for giving us a sense of what it is like to be a freelance reviewer in a city where 55 new shows opened in January, a low season in London’s theatrical year.
The success of this evening suggests finding further visitors for future Canberra Critics’ Circle self-improvement occasions. Please contact Helen Musa at CityNews with ideas: helen@citynews.com.au .
To catch up with Mark Shenton, check his blog in The Stage at
http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2011/03/oz-connections/index.html
© Frank McKone, Canberra
An Unreview by Frank McKone
Mark Shenton is a full-time theatre critic and journalist, writing a weekly review column for the Sunday Express and daily blog for The Stage. He has hosted regular platforms at the National Theatre, including an onstage interview with Stephen Sondheim. He has written liner notes for a number of original cast albums, including the West End recording of Chicago. Mark was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to London when he was 16 and has never looked back. He read law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and now lives in Borough, five minutes from the South Bank
guardian.co.uk (accessed 13 March 2011)
Mark is also Chair of the Drama Section of The Critics’ Circle, based in London but with members from all over the UK. He has a special passion for cabaret, in common with Canberra’s Bill Stephens who invited him to call in for an informal chat with the Canberra Critics’ Circle en his route between Melbourne and Sydney.
Though we reviewers give awards to the best artists, which means in London that the Drama Awards are presented in a major theatre and attract “everyone” in the theatre industry, there was consensus that the best critics, whoever they are, should not receive awards. This is why my report of a very entertaining couple of hours is not a review.
In fact it became clear that critics may not receive any rewards in the near future. Mark commented on the decline in newspaper sales as blogging and tweeting become the new outlets for critical commentary. Unless the Murdoch paywall approach is taken up by many other publishers, who will pay professional critics to blog?
Indeed, what is a professional critic? To be accepted as a member of The Critics’ Circle you must have a history of paid-for reviews over at least the previous two years. But when even a London newspaper reviewer writes, as Mark reported to us, about “blacking up” Iago in an argument against “political correctness”, I had to wonder who killed Othello? As newspapers struggle financially who will they pay to write reviews? Not the writers with experience and detailed knowledge of their specialist art forms, apparently.
Should reviews be mere entertainments? And therefore short? Of course not, but we discussed the difficult skill of writing briefly to the point, rather than boringly too long. Which means I will cut the several dozen other topics we discussed, even though this is an Unreview, and thank Mark Shenton for giving us a sense of what it is like to be a freelance reviewer in a city where 55 new shows opened in January, a low season in London’s theatrical year.
The success of this evening suggests finding further visitors for future Canberra Critics’ Circle self-improvement occasions. Please contact Helen Musa at CityNews with ideas: helen@citynews.com.au .
To catch up with Mark Shenton, check his blog in The Stage at
http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2011/03/oz-connections/index.html
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 10 March 2011
2011: Tuesdays with Morrie by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom
Tuesdays with Morrie by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom.
Ensemble Theatre directed by Mark Kilmurry at The Q, Queanbeyan
Performing Arts Centre, March 10-12, 2011.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 10
I have to eat humble pie tonight. Each of us responds to what we see from our own different perspectives.
Watching this play in my role as theatre critic, I saw a predictable moralistic sentimental story using the death of Professor Morrie Schwartz from Lou Gehrig’s disease as a contrived device, sugar-coated with carefully managed laughs.
I also saw a production highly skilfully designed, directed and acted. Daniel Mitchell faced a difficult task to avoid over-playing the Professor, but maintained a disciplined balance between making the inevitable one-liners into cartoon jokes and playing the physical horror of the disease for the horror rather than empathy. Glenn Hazeldine, as Mitch Albom, who wrote the original story that the play was developed from, had to switch regularly between playing Mitch as if in a realistic relationship with Morrie – every Tuesday – and playing Albom, the narrator of his story. By using stylised posture, movement and voice, Hazeldine clearly delineated each role. What otherwise might have been a repetitive series of question and answer in a lesser actor became a dramatic dialectic, giving the play more appearance of depth than the content of the text deserves.
However, for most of the audience – senior students from the two Canberra Grammar Schools – my perspective was well outside of the range of their radar. Their attention was focussed in the immediate heat of the emotion, not the distant cool of criticism. They were bubbling with excitement in the foyer beforehand anticipating seeing Sydney actors perform the play they had been working on. The actors’ skills did not disappoint. The young absorbed the performance as if it were music, directly responding with laughter, shock and tears, as well as a resounding standing ovation for the actors at curtain call. For them this was great theatre, and who am I to deny their experience?
Like Mitch, who failed to “keep in touch” with his favourite professor for 16 years, I have not taught College students for 16 years and realised tonight how much I have become out of touch with the immediacy of people’s feelings at that transition from teenage to adulthood. Tuesdays with Morrie may not be my play, but this production certainly made it this audience’s dramatic experience. The Q is to be congratulated for including it in this year’s program, and I hope it foreshadows more Ensemble productions in future.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 10
I have to eat humble pie tonight. Each of us responds to what we see from our own different perspectives.
Watching this play in my role as theatre critic, I saw a predictable moralistic sentimental story using the death of Professor Morrie Schwartz from Lou Gehrig’s disease as a contrived device, sugar-coated with carefully managed laughs.
I also saw a production highly skilfully designed, directed and acted. Daniel Mitchell faced a difficult task to avoid over-playing the Professor, but maintained a disciplined balance between making the inevitable one-liners into cartoon jokes and playing the physical horror of the disease for the horror rather than empathy. Glenn Hazeldine, as Mitch Albom, who wrote the original story that the play was developed from, had to switch regularly between playing Mitch as if in a realistic relationship with Morrie – every Tuesday – and playing Albom, the narrator of his story. By using stylised posture, movement and voice, Hazeldine clearly delineated each role. What otherwise might have been a repetitive series of question and answer in a lesser actor became a dramatic dialectic, giving the play more appearance of depth than the content of the text deserves.
However, for most of the audience – senior students from the two Canberra Grammar Schools – my perspective was well outside of the range of their radar. Their attention was focussed in the immediate heat of the emotion, not the distant cool of criticism. They were bubbling with excitement in the foyer beforehand anticipating seeing Sydney actors perform the play they had been working on. The actors’ skills did not disappoint. The young absorbed the performance as if it were music, directly responding with laughter, shock and tears, as well as a resounding standing ovation for the actors at curtain call. For them this was great theatre, and who am I to deny their experience?
Like Mitch, who failed to “keep in touch” with his favourite professor for 16 years, I have not taught College students for 16 years and realised tonight how much I have become out of touch with the immediacy of people’s feelings at that transition from teenage to adulthood. Tuesdays with Morrie may not be my play, but this production certainly made it this audience’s dramatic experience. The Q is to be congratulated for including it in this year’s program, and I hope it foreshadows more Ensemble productions in future.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 4 March 2011
2011: My Imaginary Family by Grahame Bond
My Imaginary Family written and performed by Grahame Bond. Directed by Maurice Murphy at The Street Theatre, March 4 – 26, 2011.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 4
After he presented the eulogy at his mother’s funeral, Bond says, his doctor approached him saying, “I think you need help.” Bond’s unspoken response, he tells us, was to reject criticism, as if the doctor were about to be a critic of his performance. In fact, it was an offer of grief counselling, which Bond accepted and found of great value.
This story, about his real family – not the family of imaginary characters he has created as a writer-performer – makes my task as a critic of his show one of a delicate balance. For the creator of characters, like Aunty Jack and Kev Kavanagh, to perform himself is like jumping off a real cliff and trusting that his imagination will make him fly. It’s a risk that most actors only take in the company of a Michael Parkinson. In this single hander, Bond plays himself, tells stories about himself, sings songs he wrote (often in company with Rory O’Donahue and Jim Burnett), moving in and out of roles he created, while also filling the Parkinson “interviewer” role of linking us watching with the person being “interviewed.”
Being Grahame Bond also inevitably meant a tendency to interact directly with his audience, so I was not surprised that keeping all these balls juggling in the intimate space of The Street 2 led him to lose his scripted lines at one point early in the show. This was, I believe, the very first performance, and trajectories came into better unison as the 90 minute show progressed. There were strong moments of both satire and emotion, both integrated in the horrifying highlight story of the 1980 New Year’s Eve at the Opera House.
For my generation whose adult lives have run alongside Grahame Bond’s, the stories behind the creation of Aunty Jack et al are of genuine interest. I was always aware of the satire, but the characters and style seemed to appear out of thin air with Thin Arthur around 1970. There was nothing quite like them in the Australian tradition, yet Aunty Jack, Flash Nick from Jindavick and Wollongong the Brave were as Australian as all get out. Perhaps they were parallel to the British Not the Nine O’Clock News, Monty Python, and The Goodies, and indeed Bond did take his work to London Weekend Television in Not the Aunty Jack Show.
I’m not sure what young people today will make of My Imaginary Family but it runs through the Canberra Festival and bookings are already going well. It will be a good test for “The stories of a ‘Jack of all Trades’ and the backing songs of his life.”
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 4
After he presented the eulogy at his mother’s funeral, Bond says, his doctor approached him saying, “I think you need help.” Bond’s unspoken response, he tells us, was to reject criticism, as if the doctor were about to be a critic of his performance. In fact, it was an offer of grief counselling, which Bond accepted and found of great value.
This story, about his real family – not the family of imaginary characters he has created as a writer-performer – makes my task as a critic of his show one of a delicate balance. For the creator of characters, like Aunty Jack and Kev Kavanagh, to perform himself is like jumping off a real cliff and trusting that his imagination will make him fly. It’s a risk that most actors only take in the company of a Michael Parkinson. In this single hander, Bond plays himself, tells stories about himself, sings songs he wrote (often in company with Rory O’Donahue and Jim Burnett), moving in and out of roles he created, while also filling the Parkinson “interviewer” role of linking us watching with the person being “interviewed.”
Being Grahame Bond also inevitably meant a tendency to interact directly with his audience, so I was not surprised that keeping all these balls juggling in the intimate space of The Street 2 led him to lose his scripted lines at one point early in the show. This was, I believe, the very first performance, and trajectories came into better unison as the 90 minute show progressed. There were strong moments of both satire and emotion, both integrated in the horrifying highlight story of the 1980 New Year’s Eve at the Opera House.
For my generation whose adult lives have run alongside Grahame Bond’s, the stories behind the creation of Aunty Jack et al are of genuine interest. I was always aware of the satire, but the characters and style seemed to appear out of thin air with Thin Arthur around 1970. There was nothing quite like them in the Australian tradition, yet Aunty Jack, Flash Nick from Jindavick and Wollongong the Brave were as Australian as all get out. Perhaps they were parallel to the British Not the Nine O’Clock News, Monty Python, and The Goodies, and indeed Bond did take his work to London Weekend Television in Not the Aunty Jack Show.
I’m not sure what young people today will make of My Imaginary Family but it runs through the Canberra Festival and bookings are already going well. It will be a good test for “The stories of a ‘Jack of all Trades’ and the backing songs of his life.”
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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